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CHAPTER XXI
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AMBER
A
LTHOUGH the
ornamental uses of amber are to a great extent outside the realm of
personal adornment, its conversion into beads, for necklaces
especially, is of such ancient origin, and these ornaments have always
been so favoured, that this fossil vegetable resin is, like the pearl
and coral, included in the realm of gems which are, with these
exceptions, and the diamond, which is carbon, purely mineral. Like the
pearl and coral, amber is identified in the popular conception with the
sea, from whence a small proportion of the amber acquired by man has
been derived.
To
use the words of Dr. Max Bauer: " This material, so much used for
personal ornaments, is not strictly speaking a mineral at all, being of
vegetable origin, and consisting of the more or less considerably
altered resin of extinct trees. It resembles minerals in its occurrence
in the beds of the earth's crust, and for that
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